This is a collection of snapcraft recipes for PostgreSQL 9.3, 9.4, 9.5 and 9.6 that can be used to create PostgreSQL snap packages.
The packages are maintained as a service to the community by Command Prompt, Inc. A PostgreSQL and Linux Professional services company. You can find Command Prompt on the web at https://commandprompt.com
If you don't want to build the binaries but instead just want to install the packages, run this command:
$ sudo snap install postgresql$ver
Where $ver is one of 93, 94, 95 or 96.
Snapcraft recipes for each PostgreSQL version are found in separate branches. To build a specific PostgreSQL version simply check out a branch that corresponds to the version you need and run snapcraft in a root of that branch checkout.
To install a local build of a snap package run this command:
$ sudo snap install --force-dangerous postgresql96_9.6.0_amd64.snap
To install from Ubuntu Store simply run:
$ sudo snap install postgresql96
Traditionally, you would run PostgreSQL as an unprivileged postgres user. This user has to be created manually.
$ adduser postgres
Beware, that if you already have PostgreSQL installed on your system through an APT/PPA repository, the postgres system account most likely already exists. You must use a different system account in that case. For example, pgsql or postgsql. It can be an arbitrary name: admin, joe, malcolm, etc.
Do not use an existing postgres system account that was created during PostgreSQL installation from standard Ubuntu, PGDG or custom PPA repositories. If you want to run both snap package and traditional deb version of PostgreSQL, create a new account.
Note that you need to run PostgreSQL commands such as psql, pg_ctl, postgres, etc. via wrappers that start with a snap package name as prefix. For example, to run pg_dump you would run postgresql96.pgdump, to run dropdb you would run postgresql96.dropdb and so on. This is just how snap packages work (see http://snapcraft.io/docs/core/usage, section "Run snaps”).
As you can see pg_dump and pg_ctl become $PREFIX.pgdump and $PREFIX.pgctl. The underscore symbol is used as a field separator character in snapcraft.yaml. It has to be substituted with something else. In this case it was simply deleted.
To get a list of all commands that are available in a package simply run:
$ ls /snap/postgresql96/current/*.wrapper
Where command-dropdb.wrapper is postgresql96.dropdb and so on.
As postgres user run
$ postgresql96.initialize initdb
This will set up your environment, call initdb and create a default cluster.
To start PostgreSQL server run:
$ postgresql96.pgctl -D /home/postgres/snap/postgresql96/common/data -l /home/postgres/snap/postgresql96/common/logs/logfile start
Similarly, you can use pg_ctl to run usual commands: stop, restart, status, etc.
$ postgresql96.pgctl -D /home/postgres/snap/postgresql96/common/data -l /home/postgres/snap/postgresql96/common/logs/logfile stop
$ postgresql96.pgctl -D /home/postgres/snap/postgresql96/common/data -l /home/postgres/snap/postgresql96/common/logs/logfile restart
$ postgresql96.pgctl -D /home/postgres/snap/postgresql96/common/data -l /home/postgres/snap/postgresql96/common/logs/logfile status
$ postgresql96.psql -h 127.0.0.1 -d postgres
We are publicly working on this project and you can join the effort. Submit any bug reports or feature requests in our Redmine PostgreSQL snap project.
Design of a snap package imposes a number of non-critical and more serious limitations:
- Only one locale is currently supported – en_US.UTF-8.
- There is no systemd service file for postgres daemon. PostgreSQL has to be managed manually by using pg_ctl.
- pg_ctl is run via a BASH wrapper to make it aware of a default system locale within a sandbox (en_US.UTF-8).
- psql is also run via a BASH wrapper to let it successfully write to HISTFILE (.psql_history)
- Bonjour and SELinux support is disabled.
We intend to eliminate as many of these limitations as possible in the future.